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The experienced staff at Beautiful Body Laser understand that starting a weight-loss regimen can feel about as inspiring as alphabetizing your receipts. To help, they tailored three separate programs geared toward motivating clients while providing visible results. A body-detoxification program aims to quickly cleanse the body, leaving a blank slate to inspire continued healthy eating and fitness. Also offered is a doctor-designed weight loss program. Finally, lipo-laser systems such as Erchonia nudge the body into naturally flushing out fat in hard-to-shrink places, such as the lower belly and love handles.
Stepping into the lobby of Beautiful Body Laser seems more like dropping by the home of a hip friend than a professional med spa.

The technicians at Poised sculpt, lift, and rejuvenate bodies with nothing but red light technology. Their treatments target troubles all over the body; BioSculpt treatments zap fat cells from problem spots such as the belly, thighs, or rear, and the BioLift regimen tones and tightens areas on the face and neck. BioRejuv heals the stubborn marks that mar skin, causing scars and stretch marks to fade from view without surgery or needles.

The team at Art of Image Studio want their clients to feel happy with their body, but not at the expense of surgery or radical dieting. That's why they re-shape physiques using noninvasive methods such as ultrasonic liposuction and cavitation, processes designed to shrink fat cells without breaking the skin. Similarly, sea-clay wraps work to slim waistlines by drawing out water, toxins, and fully inflated balloons.

The medical staff at Medical Weight Loss Centers understands the hardships often associated with losing weight, which is why a personalized, no-frills approach is the cornerstone of their business. During consultations, clients work one-on-one with physicians who measure such metrics as metabolism and body mass. From this information, they devise a program that can consist of such noninvasive treatments as prescription appetite suppressants, vitamin injections, and exercise recommendations.

The staff at The Slim Co use a non-invasive Body Light system for clients' body-contouring needs. Using gentle LED light, the treatment helps dispel stubborn inches from common target areas, such as the midsection and thighs, while clients relax to music or nature sounds.

GNC sells a wide variety of supplements (vitamin and mineral and herbal) and other health products (sports nutrition, diet, energy, body care, and more). You're sure to find something right for you, such as Ginkgo biloba capsules or that box of SuperFoods Supreme you wish for every Groundhog Day.

Groupon Guide

On Fridays, there is more pizza in the Groupon office than at a Pizza Hut. This is usually good news. Unless, like I was last Friday, you’re on the final day of a three-day soup cleanse and all you want to do is chew. Sorry. Let’s back up for a second. This all started last month when I stumbled upon a Chicago company called Soupology. Created by Alison Velazquez—a fitness instructor, personal chef, and nutritionist—it’s a soup cleanse that’s basically a heartier version of juicing. I did a juice cleanse last winter, and the thought of a warm, cozy alternative set my heart (stomach?) aflutter. I decided to try the three-day version of the cleanse (there are one-day and five-day programs, too, all of which include six soups per day).Alison dropped off 18 soups for me at the Groupon office. As the instructions explained, they weren’t typical canned soups. A lot of those are heavily salted for preservation, but these soups are made with fresh ingredients and no preservatives—just a little sea salt for taste. That makes them healthier; it also means they only last until a week after their arrival date. I got started the very next day. Here’s a rundown of my experience, along with some insights from chatting with Alison.Morning: It hadn’t occurred to me until this point that eating soup for breakfast would be strange. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that the first “soup” of the day was actually alkaline water, a spicy blend of jalapeño and pineapple. Many of the soups turned out to be spicy (but not too spicy), which Alison credited to her Mexican heritage. She also pointed out that spices are loaded with antioxidants and can help boost metabolism.Afternoon: By midday, I was getting a headache. Alison assured me this was a common reaction to suddenly depriving yourself of processed foods and caffeine. To ease this side effect, she advised me to drink plenty of water and green tea between each soup. This helped with the headache and made me feel fuller, but I quickly learned that when you ingest nothing but soup, tea, and water in a day, you have to pee. A lot. Evening: I ended the day on another sweet note—a pumpkin-spice cashew milk that tasted like dessert. But then my boyfriend came to bed with a quarter of a lemon pie and I wanted to die a little.Morning: Despite the Pie Emotions, I woke up feeling good. I was actually excited to start the process again because day two’s lineup included some different soups. That day’s alkaline water was mint- and cucumber-based, which I really liked. Afternoon: I didn’t like the second soup so much. It was a mushroom-based broth, and I hate mushrooms. Things turned around quickly with the third bottle, though, a butternut-squash soup that was even better than the one I make at home.Evening: Again, I really liked ending the day with the cashew milk. It’s the most calorie-dense (the soups get heavier as the day goes on), and it’s pretty filling. Again, I did not like ending the day with my boyfriend, who this time came home with a pizza.Afternoon: Watching my BF down an entire pizza proved to be practice for day three. As I said earlier, my office basically turns into a pizzeria on Fridays, and all I could do was sip (OK, chug) my vegetable broth with envy. If I was really being honest with myself, though, I was just being a baby. I realized that at no point during this three-day process did my tummy ever rumble. My stomach was full. My mind just thought I was hungry. Especially when my coworker tried to offer me one of the Mason-jar cupcakes that were delivered to her desk. (WHEN DID THAT BECOME A THING?!)During my cleanse, I didn’t work out. (Alison said toning exercises like Pilates are actually fine, but she doesn’t recommend cardio.) The day after I finished, though, I started my morning with a cardio and weights workout—and it felt good! My energy was high, and afterward, I didn’t gorge on donuts for breakfast. I just made some eggs.That’s really because, after all that work, I didn’t want to eat a bunch of junk. Alison said that’s the whole point. “After you put in enough time and commitment, you’re more cognizant [of what you’re eating],” Alison said. “It gets you in the right mindset to continue making better choices.”Top photo by Mark Mills, Groupon. All other images courtesy of Soupology.

People who have trouble absorbing vitamin B12 may experience symptoms including fatigue and weakness, which could stop them from participating in activities to their fullest ability or adhering to diet and exercise regimens. For certain candidates, B12 injections, sometimes referred to as B12 lipotropic injections, are a way to ensure the body has an adequate supply.
What is vitamin B12 for?
Vitamin B12 is a nutrient that assists in the proper functioning of the central nervous system and in the formation of red blood cells.
Who is a good candidate for B12 injections?
Most people in the United States get enough vitamin B12 from their diet. Foods such as fish, meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy products contain B12, as do other food products fortified with the vitamin. However, some people have trouble absorbing B12. The National Institutes of Health reports that between 1.5% and 15% of the public has a deficiency.
Your doctor can test to see if you are B12 deficient. People who have a deficiency are the best candidates for these shots.
What can B12 injections do for me?
People with a B12 deficiency might experience symptoms ranging from fatigue to weakness—two culprits that often keep people from sticking to their diet and exercise plans. Vitamin-B12 benefits can include increased overall energy levels, so in cases of deficiency, the injections may help.
What are the side effects of vitamin B12?
According to the NIH, vitamin B12 has not been shown to cause any harm. However, in some people, it might cause diarrhea, blood clots, and allergic reactions.
See a five-part segment on vitamin B12 on The Dr. Oz Show.

George Thompson, owner of Texas’s Total Med Solutions, has been offering i-Lipo treatments at his clinics for a year and a half—resulting in more than 1,400 treatments so far. To put their clients’ minds at ease, he and his team of nurse practitioners and laser-certified aestheticians back all first-time i-Lipo treatments with a guarantee: the patient will lose half an inch from the treatment area in 20 minutes, or they get their money back.“In the year and a half we’ve been doing this with the guarantee, we’ve never had to refund anybody,” George said.It’s hard to argue with that. But it’s also hard to understand it. How are external lasers producing these kind of results? What does losing half an inch really mean? Does the weight stay off? We talked on the phone, and George explained the whole process to me.The ResultsGROUPON: First off, let’s talk about results. I see “inch loss” terminology in weight-loss ads all the time. How do you guys measure that?GEORGE THOMPSON: There are a lot of games in the industry. For example, some lasers say you’ll lose three-eighths of an inch after six treatments, but that’s the sum of the losses at 10 different points on the body. I feel like, just take one measurement! So we use a tape measure, and then we also use a Sharpie to make sure we measure the exact same place before and after. If we’re doing the thighs, we’ll take one measurement per thigh, and add the losses together. But other than that, there’s no fancy math.G: Can you describe the typical i-Lipo results? So you guarantee half an inch, but most patients lose more, I imagine.GT: The majority of patients will lose an inch, and there’s many people that lose more than that. People have lost 3.5 inches in one session.G: What are some variables that affect a patient’s reaction to the treatment?GT: It depends on how much fatty tissue you have. You’ll typically see bigger results when you have more weight to lose. But even somebody who weighs 105 pounds, they could come under the i-Lipo, and they’ll lose at least half an inch to an inch.G: Do the results last? How do you even measure if they last, since people eat and stuff?GT: You know, it’s like anything else that doctors do. No matter how well a weight-loss program works, if the patient goes to McDonald’s afterward and eats for the next two weeks, they’ll gain back everything they lost. The patient has to change their behavior for the results to stick.Our goal is to help people reach their goals. It’s a whole lot easier to maintain than to try to lose that weight yourself. A lot of people need a jump-start, some help getting there. i-Lipo is that help. If you go out and you eat as many calories as you burn after an i-Lipo treatment, the weight’s going to stay off.How It WorksG: Let’s get into the mechanism of i-Lipo a little bit. How does it work?GT: i-Lipo is a low-level laser that creates pores in your fat cells. It emulsifies and liquefies the fat within the cells, too, so it actually oozes out of the pores and into your intracellular space. Then we have a suction device, which we use with the laser during i-Lipo Ultra treatments. The suction device helps to move that released fat to the lymph nodes, which is where your body processes it and flushes it out.G: How does the laser drain your fat cells without affecting your other cells?GT: It’s a low-level laser, so it’s not strong enough to penetrate into your organs. Its effects stay pretty superficial, and fat is stored in the more superficial layers of the body. And it’s just the right frequency to disrupt those fat-cell membranes.G: What are the most common treatment areas?GT: Love handles and stomach are probably tied for most common—stomach is where I’ve seen the most impressive results—and then the thighs are the second most popular after that. Thighs are most popular for cellulite reduction.But you know, it’s versatile. We’ve got a chin nodule that goes under your chin—we don’t do the half-inch guarantee there—but it does work there, too.The ExperienceG: What is the basic i-Lipo treatment experience like?GT: You’re lying down, and there are four pads—they’re each about the size of two side-by-side iPhones—that need to lie on your bare skin. So you don’t have to be naked, but you need to expose the treatment area, at least while the pads are Velcroed on. They’re attached with an elastic Velcro strap.G: How long does each treatment last?GT: Each treatment is broken up into two 10-minute sections. For the first, the pads are on one side of the treatment area; for the second half, they’re on the other side. A complete treatment lasts 20 minutes.G: How many of those treatments should someone undergo?GT: They recommend eight treatments.G: What is the sensation like?GT: It’s maybe one or two degrees warmer than your skin. And that’s it!This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. Take a look at how i-Lipo stacks up against similar treatments: The Cellulite Treatment Cheat SheetHeat it, freeze it, drain it away—we’ll explain the science behind getting rid of cellulite and tell you which method you should choose if you have a wedding next week.What Is Zerona and How Does It Work?Favin the Maven trys out Zerona, another laser-lipo treatment, and tells you five things you need to know about it.